Warnings
by BringOnTheWonder1997
Summary: When Gale thought he'd prepared for the ending of his world, the Captiol comes along and proves just how pointless preparing can be xx Please read and review x
1. Gale

The Reaping.

He'd known that something bad, something horrendous, would happen on that day. He could feel it. Feelings like that were common in his family – his father had been the same. Before he'd died. His mother called it intuition.

He called it luck. It hadn't saved his father in the end.

It wouldn't save him.

But he could try.

He made all of the preparations – careful, agonizing planning; every minute cementing the chances of this happening, with every seemingly casual conversation confirming his doom. Bringing it forwards.

He'd gone hunting in the woods at least once every two days for the last three weeks – ever since he'd first gotten that feeling.

Just in case.

It was silly really. Most of the meat would've gone off if he hadn't regained his senses and traded it down at the Hob. The people of District 12 had eaten well this week. He'd also spoken with the other traders – made sure they wouldn't try anything funny in his potential absence. Katniss would probably sort them out if they tried.

No.

She definitely would.

His family would not starve.

He'd spoken to his fellow students as well. They make sure that Rory, Vick and Posy were alright. Give them advice. No matter what, Rory was not to sign up for tesserae. The only person he hadn't spoken to was Katniss. He didn't know how to.

She'd refuse to accept it – the forty-two slips of paper with his name on that decreed the odds were _not_ in his favour. Sure, she'd make plans to appease him, make empty promises that if he was right he knew she'd keep; but she wouldn't believe. That would be saying goodbye and being emotional.

For a girl, Katniss sucked at emotions.

She was tougher than anyone he knew.

But he knew her well. Too well. Under her defences she was fragile and afraid. Saying goodbye would be letting him go and Katniss wouldn't let that happen for the world.

On the day of the Reaping, they'd both tried to pretend they were fine. He tried to both reassure her that he would be fine at the same time as giving her hints – what to do if he was right. But he was strong – and it wasn't just for her.

Once, just for a minute, his own defences had slipped and he'd made a thoughtless comment that had made the pair of them angry with the other. It had been going so well – they'd been trying so hard. Both knew what the other's mind was focussed on. But he couldn't help it. His mouth had moved faster than his brain could stop, desperate to get this solitary thought out.

Like he'd known, even before he'd said it, she hated it. She was far too selfless for that. But he kept on pushing, and on this tense day they'd argued. Everyone was wired up.

Himself more than anyone. The last words they'd exchanged in _person_ before the Reaping were half sarcastic, half truthful.

If he was right, he wanted to see her wearing something pretty, looking beautiful.

She always did anyway.

Prim's name had been chosen.

Katniss had volunteered for her sister because that was just what Katniss did. She gave everything she was to her sister. And now she was giving that last little piece of innocence, the small fraction of childhood she had retained through all of the hardships she had suffered.

Then the boy had been selected.

His name hadn't been picked.

It seemed the odds were in his favour – as far as the Capitol was concerned.

But for him they weren't.

He'd thought he'd planned for everything.

But he hadn't planned for this.

Katniss was going to die. (Even if she survived the arena, she wouldn't be _his_ Katniss anymore.)

When he'd received that tingling warning that warned him that his world was ending, he hadn't imagined the world ending.

He just prepared for the tip of the iceberg, a minor distraction, and now that the world was fracturing around him, he couldn't do anything but watch.


	2. Katniss

**I actually like Katniss, so I decided to write her own pre-Reaping thoughts and add them to Gale's xx**

Katniss had thought she was ready for the Reaping. She knew Prim's chances of getting picked - very unlikely - but she worried in.

She knew her own chances of getting picked - probable - but Gale would be there to watch out for her family, were she to be entered into the Games.

She knew Gale's chances. High. Higher than anyone else's. He could be picked, and on his last year as well.

It was him she was worried about, because Katniss could hardly feed Gale's mother and three siblings be herself. She struggled with her own family - it was Gale that managed on his own most of the time.

But all of that could end, and end tomorrow.

Well, if there was one thing that living in the Districts taught you was that it never cost to be prepared. Then you couldn't be caught by surprise and starve.

Katniss had been caught by surprise at her father's death and that had nearly cost her, her mother and Prim their lives.

Never again.

So she would be prepared.

But she wouldn't tell Gale that. She would be prepared to go into the Games herself, and her lack of fight would scare Gale, she knew. Gale was the strongest person she knew and he never sat back and submitted to the Capitol. To see Katniss so willing to would disturb him more than almost anything else.

Katniss supposed she could understand.

If she saw Gale give up like this, the ground would stop spinning beneath her feet.

But, like she said, it never hurt to be prepared.

And prepared she was. She had organised how Prim would continue to support herself and she had made sure that her mother would be alright and made a secret bargain with more than a few people, concerning the black-market and her dealings there.

The only person she hadn't spoken to was Gale.

She just didn't know how to, and she didn't particularly want to.

Not for this.

When he proposed running away together into the forest, she actually considered for a moment, a single moment, not having to plan and fight for survival. To be free.

But that was it. A single moment, because there was no point in dreaming of things that couldn't happen.

Because the chances were that tomorrow one or both their names could be chosen and they would be forced to fight to the death and all the other one would be able to do it watch.


End file.
